I also worked on a presentation about recombinant protein production in plants. In this presentation, my lab partner, Connor Steenbock, and I discuss how plant cell fermentation has been used to create various recombinant protein products including biotherapeutics, cell-free meat alternatives, and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of plant cell fermentation compared to those of bacterial and mammalian cells.

Undergraduate Research

George H. Cook Scholars Program, Rutgers University - New Brunswick

In September 2019, I was accepted into an honors thesis program known as the George H. Cook Scholars Program. My research was done in the biodegradation of pharmaceuticals and personal care products. More specifically, I studied anaerobic biodegradation of acetylsalicylic acid, which is more commonly known as aspirin, in aquatic sediments. I used anaerobic culturing techniques to isolate and enrich degradative cultures sampled from three sites: the Hudson River, the Raritan River, and a Raritan wastewater treatment plant. I also utilized various analytical techniques to study the overall biodegradation mechanism including High Performance Liquid Chromatography and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS).